Monday, November 11, 2013

Imagine a few
decades ago ~ Cricket commentary on air [on radio] was the only one available….
You cannot visualize the field setting – whether there is extra cover or not…. Those
were not the days of sweeper cover…. Then came Doordarshan with single camera
view ~ and an Expert commentator – ‘that was a good shot’ type quips… Lala
Amarnath and CD Gopinath remembered….

Now you have great
commentators …. ~ there are many who have played the game at a higher level –
not necessarily from the home country or powerful teams – the Zimbabwean - Mpumelelo
Mbangwa is a shining example. He played
fifteen Tests and twenty nine One Day Internationals for Zimbabwe but
has taken a stronger presence in commentary team. Speaking is an art. Some women do speak non-stop but still in the
World of Cricket commentary, there is no women of fame. Some of the famous commentators who readily
come to mind are : Richie Benaud, Alan
Mcgivlary, Brian Johnston, John Arlott, Henry Bloefeld, Christopher Martin
Jenkins, Jonathan Agnew, Narottam Puri,
Harsha Bhogle, Baloo Allagannan, B Ramamurthi –
and some more prominent cricketers including Tony Greig, Geoff Boycott, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay
Manjrekar, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Krish Srikkanth and more….

Chess is not exactly a
spectator sport – still state-of-the art transmission of top chess tournaments
has created a new niche: Chess commentary. Somewhere from the Anand - Gelfand
World Chess Championship 2012 to the London Chess Candidates 2013, chess
commentary has developed as an art form.
For the present FIDE World Championship 2013 being held in Chennai, the stellar
team of game commentators are Grandmaster Susan
Polgar, International Master Tania Sachdev, International Master Lawrence Trent
and Grandmaster Ramesh RB.

Polgars have been well known
in Chessdom……… Susan Polgar is a
Hungarian-American chessGrandmaster. She is an Olympic chess champion, a chess
teacher, coach, writer and promoter and the head of the Susan Polgar Institute
for Chess Excellence (SPICE) at TexasTechUniversity
as well as the coach for the 2011 National Championship college chess team. She
is the oldest of the famous "Polgár sisters": Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and
Judit. Susan is perhaps most famous for being a child prodigy at chess, for
being the first female to earn the grandmaster title through tournament play,
and for breaking a number of gender barriers in chess. At 15 she became the top
ranked women player in the World in July 1984. She was also the first woman in history to
break the gender barrier by qualifying for the 1986 "Men's" World
Championship.

Lawrence Trent the other official
commentators, 27, is from United
Kingdom, who is a norm away from becoming
the Grandmaster. Trent says chess is a serious game and if the
commentary also becomes serious, the audience is bound to lose interest. “So I
try to bring in a level of excitement.” Born
in 1986, Lawrence Trent is an International Master and despite having a number
of international tournament victories under his belt, winning the Porto San
Giorgio International back to back in 2005 and 2006, is perhaps best known for
his role as anchor and commentator.

Then there are two
Indians…. Tania Sachdev and Chennaite RB Ramesh….

Tania Sachdev born in 1986 is
a Woman Grand Master and an International Master. She is a member of the
national women team. The Delhi
girl has won multiple national championships and international medals and is an
Olympiad medalist. She is also the
recipient of the Arjuna award. A
proclaimed Vishy fan, she won her first international title when she was just
eight. In 2008 she topped the Asian Chess Championship with 6½ points out of
nine rounds.

Grand Master R.B.Ramesh is
from Chennai, India. He was British Champion in
2002 and Commonwealth Champion 2007. He retired from active participation in
Chess competitions from 2008 and started a ChessSchool
“Chess Gurukul” at Chennai for the past 5 years. He is married to Woman Grand Master Aarthie
Ramaswamy who is Woman Grand Master (WGM) and is the national champion on year
2003.

My friend quipped that he
would have been enthused more if ‘Alexandra Kostenuik’ were to be on the
commentary panel. The good looking
Alexandra reportedly can connect to the Russian, French, Spanish and English
audience in one go (not to mention Swiss and American residents speaking any
language).

Kosteniuk's mottos
have been "chess is cool" and "beauty and intelligence can go
together". With these as a backdrop, Kosteniuk has been promoting chess in
the capacity of a fashion model and ambassador of chess in order to spark interest
in the game around the world.